elections

Elections are not about electing saints, or giving power to parties who will then automatically do the right thing.
-Bill McKibben

another quiet week

A lovely, windy Saturday. This morning I walked through Silver Terrace, stopping at Florence Fang garden for a bit. I had read that there would be produce for sale from local community gardens. There were only two booths with small amounts of lovely looking greens and herbs. I strolled around the garden -- I particularly admired the bathroom -- and then continued on my way to Alemany. I bought raw honey from the Bariani guy, a quart of blueberries, green beans, and broccolini. Walked up to Cortland to get wine and chocolate and tortillas. I waited a few minutes for the 24, along with a few other people -- that was unusual. Got off at Newhall and walked the three blocks home. As I passed the party house on the 1400 block, a guy standing on the porch said, hey, white girl -- not to much a greeting as an observation. It made me smile because I haven't been called a girl for a long while.

Last night I went to RAK with Ellie and Des, and we had a neighborly meal together. Ellie seems unfazed by motherhood, though she will admit that she has momentary fears -- is he breathing? did the milk go up his nose? At one point we got onto Des's past and I learned a few new things. I knew she spent some of her childhood in a cult that exposed her to sexual abuse, but I didn't realize that one of the cult tenets was that parents should have sex with their own kids. Gulp. When she was 16 or so she moved from Hawaii to Oakland, by herself; she lived in a cult house and "serviced" the single men for a while, until she decided she might as well earn some money turning tricks out on the street, which got her kicked out of the cult house. She ended up legally adopting her current name, which she'd been given by a pimp. I've been turning it over in my head -- but I can't really absorb it. Maybe that's because she talks about it in an offhand sort of way, keeping it at a distance. Or maybe it's because of the awfulness.